What’s killing my pine siskins?
I recently removed an otherwise healthy-looking (but plump) dead pine siskin from the platform feeder. I’ve noticed that sometimes when I approach the feeders, I can almost touch a siskin before it flutters off. They almost appear to be drugged.
Andrea sent in the above photo of another hardly-moving siskin on the platform feeder (only sunflower, un-shelled). This one apparently survived as she saw it hop off of the feeder.
At first, I thought they were gorging themselves—wrong. After some nudging from a few bloggers, I made a trip to my local bird store to find out what was happening: Salmonella! Here is what I gleaned from Sonja (blueridgebirdseed.com) about the situation; I’m going from advanced-novice, mental note-taking here, so I might fumble on a few interpretations:
POTENTIAL CAUSES:
- pine siskins do their thing every 3-years, and this is the year here and they’re having a baby boomer time of it
- there are just too many at certain feeders
- they are extremely sensitive birds; as I recall Sonja said they were perhaps the most sensitive backyard bird
- they eat & poop where they are, which contaminates refuse seed on the ground, platform feeders, seed catchers, etc.
POSSIBLE CURES:
- rake old thistle/other seed off of the ground (I dunno, I have mounds of it; I’m thinking a power washer or a leaf blower might give me less seed per square inch!)
- clean thistle feeders, seed catchers, etc. w/ 10% bleach solution
- remove thistle feeders for a week or so to thin out some of the population
